Those who have been following Star Citizen in recent weeks will be aware that Cloud Imperium Games managed to reach their development milestone of releasing the first alpha version of the Social Module (PTU 1.2) to all backers by the end of August 2015.
As someone who is still developing his skills in Arena Commander (Not helped by the fact that none of my owned ships are flight-ready) and has little interest in the Star Marine (FPS) module which is set for release in the next month or two, the Social Module was one thing I had been looking forward to the most. After all, despite my hangar of choice offering a plentiful amount of seating, the Hangar experience has been and still is today a solitary one. For the first time, players are able to escape their confines of their hangars and travel towards the hub city in ArcCorp Area 18 within the Stanton III system.
Before getting into this “first impressions” article, I would just like to highlight that this module is still in early alpha. While it does allow you to sample some of the features to be present in the social module such as the Augumented Reality system and actually chatting with other players – there are still many changes to be made prior to a more solid beta release and an eventual persistent universe release.
Tying in with the other elements currently introduced in Star Citizen to date, the one thing that can be said about the ArcCorp Area 18 is that it is highly detailed and aesthetically pleasing to look at. Although the more industrial and dingy design choice may not be to everyone’s personal tastes, I found it hard not to admire how the design team have chosen to approach heavily industrial towns in the 2900’s. From the heavy use of brown and grey in the dirty buildings without any natural landmarks of note, to the pieces of soot and smoke which are present in the centre of town, they worked with the theme well, while still giving off a futuristic vibe.
Although they could have gone with something more modern and stereotypically “futuristic”, going with a design like this came across as being more distinct, and ties in with the wear-and-tear present in some of the game’s cheaper hangars such as the Self-Land Hangar and Aeroview Hangar. I have my doubts of it being possible to own a Revel & York hangar in this location however.
As those who have already seen the social media preview videos from Gamescom 2015 will know, the hub features a number of buildings which can be seamlessly entered without any loading screens or wait times. Although it is not possible to purchase anything using UEC yet, a couple of these have been set up as actual shops including Cubby Blast (Firearms) and the Medical Unit (Health Items / Hospital). Also present in the current version is the Astro Armada (A showroom currently containing an M50 Origin Interceptor), the Dumpers Depot (Presumably for ship upgrades), G-Loc Bar (Self-Explanatory) and the Trade & Development Division Jobwell (Which will some day in the future be a major hub for job opportunities). There are some limits to where players can access however, with areas including the Casaba Outlet apparel store, the ArcCorp landing pad and areas of select buildings currently inaccessible.
Although the stores are not lined up next to one another and do require a bit of walking to travel between, they have been practically laid out so someone could land and rush to their store of choice in a reasonable period of time. There are side-streets which also include currently inoperable doors, meaning there still could be other (potentially shadier) stores and venues to come. It will be interesting to see how this version of ArcCorp Area 18 evolves in the future.
Building designs with regard to the overall theme of ArcCorp Area 18 vary however. While some buildings such as the customs office and bar do correspond with the dingier theme of ArcCorp, others such as the Job Office and Astro Armada are much cleaner looking and wouldn’t be out of place in a much nicer location. It makes me wonder if this is just keeping with styles adopted by a particular business, or if these interiors will be reused in multiple locations. The coolest building in my opinion is the G-Loc Bar, which comes across as a fantastic place to unwind to some music and a beer after a long haul. Just like seating in hangars however, CIG really need to get the animations done for seating so that characters can sit down and mingle more comfortably amongst one another (in my opinion).
I personally don’t have any issue with games that feature a lot of menus, and have no trouble juggling multiple screens when playing EVE Online for example. But given that Star Citizen encourages the use of a first-person viewpoint, mitigating the use of menus and keeping everything similar to what the character would see from his/her own viewpoint would only help contribute to the realism. CIG have included the first version of Augmented Reality in the social module, which when used (through F2), allows a player to view information for items on display in-stores and character names. An example of an item on display can be seen in the image above. To be expanded in the future with Comms and Job functionality, this is already shaping up to be an adequate alternative to potentially convoluted menus.
Given that this is the Social Module, it must be noted that the actual features controlling interaction between players is currently simple and needs a couple of updates to be practical in my opinion. Although not automatically displayed, players can open the chat window using (F12), and can take advantage of text-based chat by then pressing (Enter) and typing in what they want to have displayed to other players. This is more or less your standard chat system. Unfortunately, I found the chat box to be far too small on my screen (Game client running Windowed at 1600 x 900). In addition, getting the mouse cursor to appear on screen to interact with the chat window required the Contacts window to be opened. Neither of these are major problems, but were slight detraction’s for a system which has been used in online games for more than a decade.
The Social Module also comes with a number of animated gestures, ranging from the simple ‘/cheer’ and ‘/laugh’ movements, to six different types of dance. Although it was good to see that not every character was locked into just one dance routine, they really needed to be on a loop given some end after only a few seconds. All gestures work in first-person view as well, with head movements corresponding with character model movements.
As this module is still in an early alpha phase, there is still a lot of content we have either yet to see implemented into the current client or has yet to be fully developed. According to a recent post by Tony Zurovec on the official Star Citizen website, this module is “intended to serve as the basic foundation upon which new pieces of the Persistent Universe will be periodically unveiled”. Therefore, while it may begin as just a town one can walk around and chat with people in, the social module will eventually allow access to shared hangars, have functioning stores and include new locales such as Nyx.
Hopefully in the next year or two, players will be able to experience something comparable to the presentation made during CitizenCon 2014, where players can fly their ship onto the planet and take advantage of all available amenities and services available to them. Of course, referring to this video and Zurovec’s statement that they aim to have at least forty players in a server instance, I wonder if they will have enough landing pads for that many people or if hangars away from the view of windows/buildings will be available. Would be kind of neat having a number of landing pads around ArcCorp Area 18, and getting to watch players fly in and out.
At the end of the day, I am still left waiting for the time I can fly my Freelancer DUR which has spent far too long cooped up in my hangar. But while the social module does not provide anything particularly notable with regard to gameplay compared to the Arena Commander module at this time, it does provide a promising glimpse at the game’s future outside of its current state. That being said, it is a small glimpse which can potentially consist of a quick 15 minute walk around of oohing and aahing. Because of this, I hope that players won’t have to wait too many months until the next development milestone is reached.
Having previewed Multicrew gameplay during their Gamescom 2015 presentation, and introduced space flight/combat in Arena Commander, socialisation in the Social Module and first-person shooter gameplay in the upcoming Space Marine module; I look forward to seeing the end-product once Cloud Imperium Games begin merging gameplay mechanics from all of these modules into the one persistent universe.
